This isn't a new or unique idea. SAS were talking about a collaboration framework at this year's SAS Global Forum, and I wrote a brief post about it. The idea of having a platform to facilitate business-like discussions that are focused upon specific business objects such as web reports, information maps, tables, stored processes and cubes seems to hold value.
You'll recall that Paul runs Metacoda Pty Ltd, providers of SAS services plus the excellent Metacoda Security Plug-Ins for viewing your SAS security metadata and rules. Well, Metacoda are now in the final stages of development of a new product to facilitate discovery and discussion of your metadata.
Fundamentally, the Metacoda product (which doesn't seem to have a name yet) will provide:
- Activity: get notified about any changes and discussions on items of interest to you
- Search: find the items you want and register your interest in seeing activity for them
- Discussions: share your knowledge and learn from the knowledge and experience of others
- Easy Access: get easy access from anywhere: browsers on desktop PC’s, tablets, or smart phones, and even custom applications, add-ons, and plug-ins
- Performance: to make it as fast as we can, so you can find what you need, when you want it, and don’t miss out on shared knowledge because it takes too long or it’s too hard to find
- Security: only provide access to metadata you normally have access to